, the very end of his first term since the election, him facing down the republicans about tax raises and getting them whatever they want to call it, a postponement, a retreat on holding the debt ceiling hostage, those are real changes from the sort of kumbahyah obama that we saw a lot of at this time this time early in his first term. so i think it's all good, and i think he may be emboldened. his views, he is essentially a liberal centrist. i don't think anyone can really ever doubt that. but he hasn't always stood up for it. and sometimes it seems he is so eager to find some kind of nonexistent bipartisan compromise to the party of no, that he sort of shirked from it. >> i think he has stopped -- he went -- moved from saying we can find something between us that we can agree to move together on, that was sort of what he started off saying. and now he is saying we can agree to do it my way. my way, actually, is widely agreed upon. and it is the way that we can move forward, and i think we ought to. it's a bolder stance. >> it's a bolder stance. and by the way, he won the election. >
